Watch Wolf Hall season 2 opening as Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour after "bloody" Anne Boleyn beheading
The Mirror and the Light arrives on BBC One and BBC iPlayer this Sunday.
We're just a few days away from the release of the hotly anticipated Wolf Hall season 2 – almost a decade after the first season aired to huge critical acclaim.
Subtitled The Mirror and the Light, the second season is based on the final novel of Hilary Mantel's trilogy about the life of Henry VIII and his advisor and confidant Thomas Cromwell, with Damian Lewis and Mark Rylance reprising their roles from the previous run.
It returns to BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Sunday 10th November, but there's some good news for fans already impatient to watch the new season: the dramatic opening scenes have been made available to watch in advance.
The first five minutes of the debut episode have been uploaded to the BBC's official YouTube account, and it's fair to say that the series doesn't waste any time in delving into some major moments from history.
In the footage – which you can watch below – scenes of Anne Boleyn's execution are intercut with the King getting ready for his wedding to Jane Seymour, with Claire Foy briefly back in the role of his doomed second wife.
In the closing moments, Rafe Sadler (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) approaches Cromwell to ensure that everything has gone according to plan with the beheading, asking him: "Did it have to be this way... so bloody?"
After a pause, Cromwell responds: "When negotiation and compromise fail, then your only course is to destroy your enemy. Before they wake in the morning, Rafe, have the axe in your hand."
As with the first season, The Mirror and the Light has been adapted from the late Mantel's work by playwright and screenwriter Peter Straughan, with Peter Kosminsky directing all six instalments.
Meanwhile, other returning cast members include Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Wolsey, Kate Phillips as Jane Seymour and Lilit Lesser as Princess Mary, while there are some high-profile new additions in the shape of Timothy Spall as the Duke of Norfolk, Harry Melling as Thomas Wriothesley, Harriet Walter as Lady Margaret Pole and Alex Jennings as Stephen Gardiner.
The official synopsis for the season reads: "May, 1536. Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, and five of her coterie are dead. As the axe drops, Thomas Cromwell emerges from the bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour.
"Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to back him, and no private army. Navigating the moral complexities that accompany the exercise of power in this brutal and bloody time, Cromwell is caught between his desire to do what is right and his instinct to survive. But in the wake of Henry VIII having executed his queen, no one is safe."
Read more:
- Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light teases ruthless power plays in first-look trailer
- Wolf Hall star Damian Lewis is on the cover of this week's Radio Times
It continues: "Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and religious reform. But as fortune’s wheel turns, Cromwell’s enemies are gathering in the shadows.
"The inevitable question remains: how long can anyone survive under Henry’s cruel and capricious gaze?"
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Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light comes to BBC One and iPlayer on Sunday 10th November.
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